Tuesday, December 13, 2011

The song writing demon Men Diamler was in the process of packing up guitar and Houseache Horse forever, as in full stop… Rumour has it he’s going all Mieses Gegonge on us for 2012 - ditchin' the strings for hover tubed electronics, and avant ear violence... a spectacle I'll defo be lining up for … So Thursday was the night to catch his penultimate Diamler show over at my favourite all time venue, The Cube… For the occasion, he’d collated the help of a few Cheltenham based pals to supply a varied send off… Ochre stable mates Longstone were amazing, with live procession spicing up the 'behind a table' electronics and bass… The hilariously name Brown Torpedo were also killer with their mutant blend of dancy Korg splashes and Marky Smith vocodering.

First up, Andy Oliveri certainly gave out the Neil Young shimmers and when Rich finally hobbled onto the stage, multiple shots lined up for nerves… he just launched straight into it… Mexican wrestler masked for the first ditty, requests for Admiral Axe were brushed off as he rode through some classic Rich fayre… his warped realities leaping from the depths of sorrow to deranged joy.

Plenty of 'dirty tramp' yelling and mangled cross-eyed blues along the way… When the final tune died away I felt the loss of the Diamler massively.

Sunday 3rd December at the Cube Bristol

A few days later I found myself back at the Cube for Fursaxa… Seen Tara twice, this being my third emersion… She never fails to captivate, weaving mystery from mandelas of whistle, bells and voice, stretching them out on sacred organ totems, creating glimpses of elk shadows and forest ancients. Delving into the past with relatively modern means… Those spinning wheels of voice layering up; drifting on through slowly, disassociating you from time / place… working their faerie magic as her profile glowed all Native American in the stage lights. … I think a few tunes from her witchy Mycorrhizae Realm of last year snuck into the set. That reversed chant element, tripping into real time voice was a real mind scrambler… as if the random cut up, were dolls' faces falling away to reveal yet more intricate masks… infinite vapours becoming other, as the whispers prised you from reality's grip… Her white hands, like spectral mangrove roots… The drone bedrock, humming like a fleet of aircraft, cut into, tempo curved… A phantom choir behind her, all baritone bass, her featherlite voice chanting over the top, or bleeding from inside in differing tones, casting stilettoed patternings of emerald, amethyst, vivid azure. Bewitched I was …

Wasn’t really fussed about the others on the bill, although both Sharon Kraus and Meg Baird were without doubt masterful guitar players and great vocal harmonists, their tranquillised beauty was seriously bad news for my sleep deprived slump, kept catching myself nodding off and withdrawing to a parallel world where somebody was shouting ‘fuck love’ from inside their guitar's innards...

Well that wraps up my gig going for another year, was going to pop along to Death in June’s shindig at the Underworld at the end of the month, but frankly don’t know whether I can face another 'bride stripped bare' strum-a-thon through Mr P’s classics, or jostling for a good view amongst the fetish neo-militia… Probably spin some late night vinyl instead and sink a few glasses of homemade druid juice…

Monday, November 21, 2011

Brussels babe gets jiggy with her special blend of skitty shivers... My French is dire (or should that be Flemish) so I’m probably missing out on the banter side of things but this is so catchy it doesn’t really matter… The rest of this excellent EP (le sens des valeurs) can be found over at FMA

Sunday, November 06, 2011

This lushly packaged release from Joinedbywire, gives a pleasant Nagasaki shake to the speakers. Textural towers of junkshopped machine give out a pure concrete satisfaction of jittering geriatric rivet and other broken automata. But it's not jumping into the deep end too quickly, things are allowed to develop gradually, built up on the dust of insectal aluminium and spazzed circuits... paraphernalia piling until it’s a mechanised tumour pushing through skin with parasitic life. A mangle of malfunction, snapping hungrily or scurrying through your cranium with nervous energies, the magnetized haze, a myriad of loose mouthed spurs.

Tracks bleeding into each other, constantly paring themselves back into an oasis of bruised ambience… twilight reflections peppered in field recordings of overlapping dirge and velveteen reek, revealing secret pockets of Viennese chimes that clank with an unnatural aura between your ears. The last track Drym Lane Atomball stretches leisurely. A threadbare pianola, revolving on the circumference of some oscillating tardis thread, mutating into a mechanoid Windy and Carl. Dronic sails battered by nano-crunch, whirring glass and blasting furnace …this is so goddamn beautiful ,it's as if you could glimpse the scope of the universe in its grainy collisions... that neo primitive machine vocab, blowing out into the hissy ferrics of actual human conversation... something that definitely seems a possible seed behind this album's creation…

Wednesday, November 02, 2011

It was like glass flying past my ears… catching instrument reflections; fragments within… Those guitars embossing rich shapes, tangles of crayoned majesty … the noise was incredible, satisfying, full of raw claws … that clarinet slaughter smearing… vocals eaten by delay… can’t believe it’s taken me this long to catch Bardo Pond live, but that rich sandpapery vibe was well worth the wait…

Right from the start out Circle were on a full-on Hawkwind homage… plying plenty of explosive riffology, rocking out the feel good energy in glittery spandex and studded metal … Mika Ratto giving out a real show of Norseman fist. Coming across like a Finnish Freddy Mercury strutting the stage part ringmaster/part rock cliché Lenin… adding vocal syrups and keyboard lightning , stirring up the soup, yodelling all shamanic into the mic… They diverted into some artsy DNA crawl of guitar strings and collapsing tempos, but the rhythmic highway was never that far away as they tore it up again and again in heady psycho nautical directions, slapping that well worn counter of rock/metal with fresh meat… One of the best croft gigs of 2011...

Wednesday, October 19, 2011

Jessica Rylan was being eaten up by a flu bug, having just woken from the back of a van... brandishing a few glasses of medicinal brandy. She chatted in fragmented thought, post arms race concerns, anti-anarchy... a cough here and there ...she proclaimed a liking for chaos over noise, started the circuitry then decided to append the previous conversation...

She laughed to herself at the pointless of this and recommenced the music in a sliver of extinguished dog toy sounds and squeaky salvos... she patched in more leads, introducing a deep and satisfying aggregate to the equation... and with a few more tweaks it was a burning pylon of asymmetrical judder and twitching spasm. A further scuzzed bass deliverance threw out random anchors...

But it wasn't until her vox bled through this, that the true shivers started... the vocal vibe, a possessed, scary, phatomised one... The quality of ripping sellotape or brittle cellophane landscaping the feedback... Unpredictable colours and spiking ugliness seemed to erupt from her body, as if she was mischievously toying with the electrics.

This was way better than that full moon show back in 2005... then, it was all over as suddenly has it had begun followed by a short bit of funny, observational poetry... Glad to say she still remains the queen of my noise loving heart...

Cian Nugent Band more conventional than the other's, a showcase of just two songs. One, a short skewered traditional Irish lilt with some gorgeously warm viola... whilst the other, was a lengthier and far braver distillation, entitled 'three and sixes' that burnt up on some heady tempo swings.

The bare footed Bill Orcutt was like a bearded golem, hugging his bruised and battered guitar. Face, snug to the instruments contours almost salivating on the worn varnish as 4 strings took their punishment in a rush of bent blue chords... Some nice off key cantering and neck grabbed fret damage was displayed with the occasional vocal whimper breaking out. Coming across all soul wretched with an urgency that wiped away any inkling of pretention... Half an hour of viral exorcism with a few feedback chasms scraping the speakers and some life affirming howling that proved there was plenty of life to be had after Harry Pussy.

Tuesday, September 27, 2011

The Big Naturals were on vicious, ear wrecking form. Bombastic drums and screeching bass claws with reverbed to fuck vocals howling hopelessly inside... Convulsive fits of effect wah's blistering within that headache inducing cymbal... carabiner scraping the strings in wheel-spinning scars... no let up... the occasional re-tuning oasis filled with the growl of a ravenous stack of amps.

UT started off a bit lacklustre after the ear traumas of Big Naturals, but soon satisfyingly sped off... the trio getting nicely agitated in the guitar department, wiry rhythms that cantered around the drums like a tangle of hungry dogs.

Loved that misshapen, scratchy quality to the music... and those sandpaper vocals - like a trio of Mrs. Hershs throwing their muses... Canal, Ham and Young's shrillings coming across witchy in places... seemed fitting Jacqui was sporting those pointy shoes.

Later K Martin (?) from God, took over the drumming from Nina... his arms sported a disturbia of Rorschach tattoos ... moved the furniture round in insistent slams as all three guitars needled their way through Griller and In Gut’s House material as if twenty years ago was just yesterday...

Wednesday, September 21, 2011

The space is a serene drumless one where everything transfers in a soft leisurely manner, propelled on diaphanous pulses as if caught in the swirl of a glass bell jar … An undercurrent of atomised inflections creep through your ear like a smooth flurry of birds… distended key strokes glow in amplitude as Eno-equse quivers infect the tourmaline in slo-mo sunspots and diffused halos… Diamond like puckers burst with momentary light, rooting themselves deep into your slowing heart rate… the landscape slipping through your fingers, teetering on the cusp of unconsciousness. The final track pulling you back umbilically with a hypnotic female vocal from New Zealand's Alicia Merz (Birds of Passage) that gives this 30 minute creation from Listening Mirror a definitive and satisfying conclusion...

Thursday, September 15, 2011

Regrettably, I only caught the last bit of Serena's new band Winston Egbert... some craziness about aubergines that spun out far too quickly for my liking... Serena swapping her usual guitar for some drum massacring... Fortunately, managed a full portion of Matt's Fairhorns persona ... a wobbled sci-fi that seemed to be rebounding on a bent Perspex collider... Got seriously lost in all those mood swings he was plying, dark disco beans flipping into lovingly knackered kraut incentives... A hell of lot of discovery... His glasses falling off as he nodded out to the rhythmic spew... Little glimpses of tune marching out all dirgy and crumpled. Some gorgeous little ear hooks in there, dancing in their repetitive kernels, struggling to keep afloat on fluorescent battery acids...

The headliner, Foot Village were like the Thee Truth side of PTV'sLive In Gottingen but quadruple the tribal chaos, mixing in capacious amounts of incoherent yelling for good measure. A full on cathartic joy of a performance... must have been about 3 -4 drum kits all bunched into the middle of the floor, us spectators circling the periphery... A tiny girl giving out massive throat violence whilst those skins thrust the primitive into your face... Satan's horn stewing filthy spikes across it all... The irresistible urge to fling yourself stupid was totally irresistible, the need to open your lungs and yell frustrations to fuck... 110% satisfied!

Wednesday, September 07, 2011

Tuesday, September 06, 2011

Normally I hate camping, partly down to this country's banana weather... but throw three days of music into the equation and the obvious discomfort seems to mysteriously disappear - so when another opportunity to be Supernomalised presented itself, it was back to that much loved field in the middle of nowhere...

On arrival, a whiff of rhythm hits us, all bassy and deliciously slothful, like Godspeed tangoing with some shoegazery glaze... I was so hooked that after evil tent assembly I drifted straight towards its origin. Turned out to be Hakarl's 36hr Communion, which was without doubt one of the best things going down at this year's festival. This was a sleep deprived improv collective with extra members floating in and out at any given moment, jamming endlessly, gathering small repetitive threads together and bleeding out some gorgeous mutations. You could literally lose hours watching how things developed without any clock watching lulls in the action, so much invention was going down, minute occurrences became fused, diffused, hijacked... each member following cues into the unknown...Plenty of re-visits were had and when it ended on Sunday it was sorely missed...

The satisfyingly gutsy noise coming from the bottom of the field turned out to be 'Cold in Berlin' who were much better live than I'd imagined them to be. Predictably gothic, but not in a bad way, heads above that mopey syrup and Twilight bull that passes for darkness these days... they even seemed to be channelling some genuine angst... all zombie armed choruses and screaming expletives, fucking loud too... loved that murderous zeal and bony economy that seeped outa their particular version of crypt loving black... their hard as nails guitar and wailing existentialism went well with my slippy slidey head...

This was followed by a generous helping of Rat Face in the dance tent, who has single handedly dispelled my dislike of all things hip and hop... that mixture of beats and razor sharp lyrics certainly hit the spot, plenty of circuit twitchwifery slinking around there too. Later, I caught some 'Edward Lear' spoken words coming from the improv tent, struck up conversations with some lovely strangers, somebody from the 'A' band slipped me a cdr said I'd like it...The silvery moon turned the night sky's clouds into a tidal canvas, I failed to capture it through the camera... my was head strobing too much… decided to retire to tent sanctuary - don't know why, as sleep just wasn't a graspable prospect... a moonlit mind wanders in a white rabbit suit.

Saturday started slowly, noodle maggots for breakfast, chats with friends, wandered through the masturbating cloth sculptures hanging from the trees... cloven hooves and halo of flies. Met the creator, he said 'you want to see my live performances.' I sniggered at the imagining...then the heavens poured. Clad in my batman cape, I watch said artist riding bare arsed round the top field, the cloth creature on the back of his bicycle jerking away...

we retired to the blue haze of the tent and I drew as the rain hammered down. Reminders of Cave's carny and recently observed headbangs into trees to choruses of 'why why why?'. Heaven was raging that day and fear of fading memory was totally disabling..... 'nature morts' from the tent hi-fi flowed into the ears... early 80's post everything helps... afterwards took a listen to that cdr that I stuffed into my pocket the night before, spoken word with wonky instruments, really liked it, the manner of voice reminded me of Karl Blake's rantings... gonna have to give this the proper write up it so eagerly deserves...

As the rain mysteriously subsided the music was a blur, z+ were an amazing cathedral of bone, but Thought Forms were the first to give my ears a savaging, rolled up into a fearsome racket, Guy's drums full of bricks being lobbed into some metal silos, the three of them were burning up... even when Deej's guitar lead became severed they refused to be abated... as he rubbed his spine up and down Charlie's guitar... love burningggggg from hollowed out frames...

In comparison, Maria and the Mirrors had a bit of a shaky start, but luckily found their footing quite quickly afterwards... a drunken bloke grabbed my ear, shouted he hated the electronic scribble behind the drumming... I stared back in wry disbelief... I shouted back 'what yr talking about, that's the glue' he looked back at me more than a little bewildered... The last track from them was killer, a complete mess of tribal spluttering, like some Manga deathslide on wiry hairshirts gift wrapped up in 2nd gen atmospherics 'travel sex' I think it was called...

I got lost in the skies, they were truly amazing... the clouds turned into a shark eating its own thoughts, nobody else saw and the moment quickly vaporized... I captured a leaning head, a pure psyched flowering iris... and later some great sunsets.

Primordial Undermind were good, that totally soild riffage was ticking my boxes and Eric's guitar was amazingly loud, I sat and drew to the vibe...

Then GNNNNNNNOD who started off a bit bi-polar, too ranty, the Gillespie lookie likey getting hot under the collar... later hooked into some divinely twisted Gregorian fuelled funkiness that got me waving arms and swaying around like only Gnod can supply... the cherry picked reverb screamed, shooting my head in slimy ricochets...

Wasn't feeling much for David Deviant, watched through my hair... the lyrics were fun but I was feelin' shite... which resulting in sleeping through Teeth of the Sea and the 'A Band'... Got woken up by Mr.O grabbing his stuff before journeying home as he was working the record store the next day... said something about a nudity before disappeared into the night... I fell back into blissful sleep...

Caught Maria and the Gay first up Sunday, bore no relation to Maria and the Mirrors, although i was secretly wishing they would, anyways they were a great wakeup call full of sleazy presets scrappy guitars and stupidly catchy lyrics... firmly in the 'Chicks on Speed' camp, really wished I'd brought more money as that 'pushchair suicide' song would have been a great in car anthem...

Mooched around the merch, more kandy for the eyes than buying... caught Arthur Brick who captured the boiling hot day with his scuttling banjo frolics...

Next I nosed the startings of the Apatt Orchestra, but felt uneasy… As they were finding their differing voices, decided to distract myself with some 'Gum Takes Tooth'... who turn out to be blistering schizoid fun for the ears... I missed getting back to the Apatt as a result...

later Ross told me they dedicated their set in memory of Joe, but wasn't until the Fuzzylights played their closing number that I started to well up... I was losing it to the violin, how clichéd was that... reconciled myself visioning the stagelights through my beer, looked like the first frostings of November, swollen with demonic action... Mardt's cider all sweet smelling in the fading sun...

Skullflower were much anticipated, me being a massive fan...must have been the shortest set on the bill and the most disappointing... this latest incarnation was a trio of full on guitar feedback... verging on the monological with far too few fizzing overlays for my liking. Everything seemed to flounder in the kinetic scrum, felt it would have suited a more confined space...

Cindytalk on the other hand were great, a hard edged razor reflection with bitter dispersions of eelectricity whipping the conventional rock dynamics... couldn't really string any sense from the vocals, too effect diseased, but they imparted a tasty strung out/comedown angry almost vitriolic vibe... a souring of affections, mulled over disappointments. The lead singer downed the contents of a hip flask on the music's fractures... occasionally snogging the audience... Pissed on Skullflower's toe dipping into the void, and defo got me curious about hearing more...

The fest was slowly burning out into the night ...wandered through the illuminations, the shuffling shadows, shouty hardcore behind us… mental collapses and the universal love of star filled skies… drifted to sleep whilst the sound of Suspira seeped from the dance tent... I swear that dawn chorus on Monday morning was calling me a Nazi bastard…